Feedspot Game Development Blog Awards

If anyone has not read the great compilation list put out by Feedspot already; then I would fully recommend giving it a read now at Game Development Blogs as there is a wealth of information pertaining to game development blogs that some people might not have known existed. Of course, we at GameMakerBlog were ecstatic to see our blog was ranked in 10th place and it shows how strong the content is not only starting to become but has been with previous editors like Mark, who contributed to some truly informative posts. Of course at the top of the list are some heavy hitters in the game development community with sites such as Gamasutra and of course Game From Scratch; both are more than deserving of their top spots given the depth of information and technical help they provide through articles and even video. That is not to say other blogs on the list are not as informative, take for example number 45: Sande Chen – Game Design Aspect of the Month which can be found here: Game Design Aspects where you will find posts focused on Game Design; one of the most important development area’s for creating an engaging game.

Criminals demand money from Albion Online

It was an interesting weekend for Albion Online; full of twists and turns, server restarts and ransom demands. To get a better feel for just how serious things got, the CEO and Founder himself took to the forum to explain what was happening: Bercilak → DDOS & Blackmailing saying that a ransom demand was given and is purely asking for money. Now while it is nicely spelled out on the forums, if you were in game during the DDoS attacks you would have been greeted with the above server wide message (which was immediately ridiculed in chat and many vowed to start a DDoS Criminals guild). While DDoS (Distributed Denial-of–Service) attacks have been plaguing MMO’s for years, the community responses are more unique in this particular case as some are doubting that there even is a DDoS happening (language warning: angry tweet) and what we are seeing is a False Flag attempt to shift blame off the servers and database issues that have been going on since launch. Is there something going on; would Albion Online try to make up a fake event to hide their internal issues? Let’s examine the evidence and see if we can come to a conclusion.

HumbleBundle for GameMaker: Studio 1.4

Some truly great news for all game developers released today as the HumbleBundle Store announces a GameMaker “Rebundle” which offers an amazing discount on the export licenses for GameMaker: Studio 1.4. Before we get into the details of the bundle I want to explicitly point out that this bundle is for GameMaker: Studio 1.4 not GameMaker Studio 2, but that does not mean you should not get this bundle and here are some very good reasons: If you get the GameMaker: Studio 1.4 licenses, you can then get the GameMaker Studio 2 licenses at an Upgrade Discount until August 31st; You’ll also receive source code for games in the bundle that were made with GameMaker: Studio which can easily help to give you ideas on anything you are currently developing or even planning to develop. With that said, let us get to the details.

GameMakerBlog Tutorials

What is a GameMaker Room

The official documentation of a Room can be found here and at a high level it is a container that can hold object instances and assets. There can be more than one room in your game, rooms can parents of other rooms, rooms can be added dynamically while the game is running and most importantly: Gameplay takes place in a room. Different parameters related to a room include: making a room persistent, adding layers to a room and setting viewports for the room. While this may all seem obvious to most, let us see if we can relate this to the real world and make things clearer for anyone who might be in need. Continue Reading

GameMakerBlog Tutorials

Top Down Game: Make an enemy unit face the player

GM Version: GameMaker Studio 2

Making an Enemy unit face the player or even face a certain direction is a question that shows up on the GameMaker Community forums many times and is a fundamental function in creating any game that has enemy units; no-one wants to see enemies looking the opposite way when they are coming after your player even though that is a rather funny scene to picture. This tutorial will cover the Top Down type of game, where players and enemies are viewed from directly above as opposed to a Platformer that uses a side view; each game type requires different ways of changing, tracking and facing the player unit so we will tackle them in separate posts. The most important goal of this tutorial is not so much the code but rather the “why” and “how” the code is working; in this way the lessons learned here can be reapplied in other situations and carried along as another tool in your developer utility belt.

GameMakerBlog Tutorials

Introducing the GameMaker Tutorial Series

As I am always trying to learn more about GameMaker; frequently I find myself visiting the great GameMaker Community tutorials section to see what new gems the community may have posted up. While I was browsing the forums a pattern emerged: Fundamental questions are always being asked and the responses are usually redirects to youtube videos. While I can and have learned from youtube video tutorials often, when I am looking for a specific answer to a question I prefer reading text; I just absorb that medium better than watching a video when it comes to understanding and processing code. It turns out that I am not the only one to want a more fundamental explanation as seen in this post by FrostyCat: Holding tutorial content accountable to novice aptitude on the GMC where it is described that instead of learning why you would use a function or snippet of GML it is instead just a quick “copy and paste this code” with no deeper explanations given; you cannot reapply that knowledge in other situations if it is not explained why you are using it in the first place.

To this end I have attempted to create a new Tutorial Series which you can find listed out on this page: GameMakerBlog Tutorials and it is my hope this will prove useful to someone.

GameMaker Studio 2 Adds Console Export Modules

The Good News

June 22, 2017: YoYo Games announces triumphantly that Console Export Modules for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have arrived

Now this is great news, it really is; console exporting at the click of a button is a grand idea and really lends itself to getting out there and making the next big hit on some of the newest console platforms available: PS4 and Xbox One. Let’s be clear though, console export modules already exist in GameMaker: Studio 1.4 and users have had access to the following console modules for free: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Xbox One; as long as they were registered developers with Sony or Microsoft. There is still an important reason to make the upgrade to Game Maker Studio 2; support for GameMaker: Studio 1.4 will be ending next year in 2018. You can read about YoYo Games official sunset schedule here: GameMaker: Studio 1.4 Sunset. This means if you are thinking of starting or currently in the early stages of console development for PlayStation 4 or Xbox One it is advised you upgrade to GameMaker Studio 2 although timing might be important as the new console export modules are for the first time ever: Yearly Subscription based.

Hikati Games LLC has purchased GameMakerBlog

Hello to all GameMakerBlog fans and GameMaker: Studio developers from Hikati Games; as readers of this blog know from the previous post by Mark: GMB is up for Sale! GameMakerBlog has been up for sale and the short of it is: I contacted Mark and talked with him about the current GameMakerBlog, the future of the blog and of course the community. I am happy to say that all answers I got from Mark were encouraging, supportive and only made me appreciate GameMaker: Studio even more for creating this opportunity; after all the blog and great community backing it would have never been created if the original Game Maker software didn’t come first. Having said that; I think a longer explanation is in order to describe Hikati Games, why I contacted Mark, and what plans are in the future for the blog.